AmaMagna - Gems of Southeast Europe

Where this cruise calls, day by day

8 ports over 7 Nights.

1. Day 1

   Giurgiu

   RomaniaDepart

   Giurgiu is a transfer point and the day is best planned that way. It is a Romanian freight port of 55,000 facing Ruse across the water, joined to Bulgaria by the Friendship Bridge of 1954, and the town holds little for a visitor - its fortifications were razed by 1829. Nearly everyone who ties up here is on a coach to Bucharest within the hour.

   • Bucharest, 64km north - the Palace of the Parliament and the Lipscani old town
   • The Clock Tower, built in 1771 as an Ottoman watchtower over Danube traffic
   • The Friendship Bridge across the Danube to Ruse, on the edge of town

   Getting ashore

   Docked at the working river port; the coach to Bucharest takes about an hour and a half each way, and there is little reason to linger in town.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

2. Day 2

   Rousse

   BulgariaPort

   Ruse is Bulgaria's main Danube port, and its centre looks unlike the rest of the country - neo-baroque and secession facades put up when 19th-century merchant and customs money arrived, which is why it gets called the little Vienna of the Danube. Ships tie up within walking distance of Freedom Square. The excursions inland are the stronger half of the day.

   • The Ivanovo Rock-Hewn Churches, 14th-century frescoes cut into a cliff 32m above the river
   • Basarbovo, the only working cave monastery left in Bulgaria, 9km out of town
   • Veliko Tarnovo and the Tsarevets fortress, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire
   • The Monument of Liberty on Freedom Square and the neo-baroque streets around it

   Getting ashore

   Docked on the Ruse riverfront, a short walk from the centre; Ivanovo is about 26km out, and Veliko Tarnovo is 108km and roughly two hours each way by coach.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

3. Day 3

   Vidin

   BulgariaPort

   Vidin has gone from about 65,000 people to under 35,000 since 1989, and it does not hide it - shuttered shopfronts and wide quiet streets. The compensation is Baba Vida, a largely intact medieval fortress standing on the bank at the end of the pedestrian street, a short walk from where the ship ties up. The main excursion runs inland to the Belogradchik rocks.

   • Baba Vida fortress on the riverbank, built between the 10th and 14th centuries
   • The Belogradchik Rocks - sandstone towers up to 200m high over some 50 square km
   • Belogradchik Fortress, whose walls use the rock formations themselves as defences
   • The New Europe Bridge to Calafat, only the second bridge ever built between the two banks

   Getting ashore

   Docked on the Vidin quay at the foot of the pedestrian centre; Baba Vida is a short riverside walk, and Belogradchik is 58km and about 1hr15 each way by coach.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

4. Day 4

   Iron Gates (Scenic Cruising)

   SerbiaPort

   The Iron Gates transit ends at the Djerdap dam, and locking through it is a slow, oddly compelling piece of engineering theatre. The dam raised the river about 20m when it closed, drowning villages and the Ottoman island of Ada Kaleh, whose 600-odd residents had already left for Turkey. A good deal of what this gorge used to look like is underneath the water you are floating on.

   • Locking through the Iron Gate I dam, a 60m-high, 1,278m-long wall finished in 1972
   • Golubac Fortress at the upstream end, where the gorge narrows to 230m
   • Lepenski Vir, the Mesolithic settlement moved uphill as the reservoir rose
   • The Kazan narrows and the Decebalus rock carving on the Romanian shore

   Getting ashore

   No berth - a scenic transit and a lock passage. Timings shift with barge traffic at the dam, so which parts fall in daylight is not guaranteed.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

5. Day 5

   Belgrade

   SerbiaPort

   Belgrade has been fought over and rebuilt so often that it has no single old quarter - Habsburg blocks, Ottoman traces, socialist concrete and new riverfront towers sit within a few streets of each other. River ships moor close to the centre, frequently rafted two or three deep. Kalemegdan Fortress, on the bluff above the confluence of the Sava and the Danube, is the obvious first stop and it is walkable.

   • Kalemegdan Fortress and the Victor monument above the Sava-Danube confluence
   • Knez Mihailova, the pedestrian spine, and the old taverns of Skadarlija
   • The Church of Saint Sava, among the largest Orthodox churches in the world
   • The House of Flowers, Tito's mausoleum, up at Dedinje

   Getting ashore

   Moored at the passenger quay on the Sava rather than the Danube cargo port, a short walk below Kalemegdan; as everywhere on the rivers, ships may raft alongside each other and you cross another vessel to get ashore.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct (Jul-Aug is hot, and low water on the Danube can force coach transfers)

6. Day 6

   Vukovar

   CroatiaPort

   Vukovar was besieged for 87 days in 1991 and largely destroyed, and its memory of that is the substance of a visit rather than a footnote to it. The shell-scarred water tower has been left as the fighting finished it and opened as a memorial. Parts of the baroque town have been rebuilt, and the guides here are frequently people who lived through the siege.

   • The Vukovar Water Tower, hit more than 600 times and never repaired, open since 2020
   • The Ovcara Memorial Centre, 8km out, and the hospital's Place of Memory in the basement
   • The Vucedol Culture Museum and its Copper Age settlement downstream of the town
   • Ilok, the wine town 35km upriver, with its Odescalchi castle and cellars

   Getting ashore

   Docked on the Danube quay in the centre of Vukovar; the town is walkable, the water tower a short shuttle or a 20-minute walk, and Ovcara about 8km out by coach.

   Best months

   May-Jun and Sep-Oct

7. Day 7

   Mohacs

   HungaryPort

   Mohács is as much a border formality as a destination - it is where Danube itineraries clear in and out of Hungary. Its name belongs to the 1526 battle that broke medieval Hungary and opened the country to Ottoman rule; a memorial park stands on the field with carved wooden markers over the mass graves. Most calls coach onward to Pécs.

   • The Mohács battlefield memorial park and its carved grave markers
   • Pécs, about an hour away, with its early Christian necropolis and Zsolnay ceramics
   • The Busó masks of the Busójárás carnival, on display in town year-round
   • Villány wine country, the Hungarian red-wine region south of Pécs

   Getting ashore

   Vessels moor at the town quay on the Danube; the town is a short walk but thin on sights, and excursions leave by coach.

   Best months

   Apr-Oct; Feb for the Busójárás carnival, though that is outside most cruise seasons

8. Day 8

   Budapest

   HungaryArrive
   Budapest port guide: where ships dock and what to do ashore